


A Man Who Regrets

by MrDerpyKid2



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: I won't say which Doctor, Though you'll probably guess halfway through
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 18:26:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16392848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrDerpyKid2/pseuds/MrDerpyKid2
Summary: This little oneshot was kicking around my brain for a while. Hope you Whovians like it.





	A Man Who Regrets

Let us speak of a man.

This man walked among many lands and many peoples. To some, he brought boundless hope: working miracles, bringing salvation to entire peoples. To others, he brought unfathomable terror: a man who slaughtered thousands without remorse, a man whose fury was unrivaled if provoked.

The man, however, was not the first in his particular line of work. In fact, he came from a very long, long line of such men (though the numbering of the generations were often debated by those who knew his line).

The man was a wanderer, yet he was never lost: his most constant companion was, perhaps, not the most talkative of beings, but she still followed the man to wherever he went. And though the man did not spare her many actual compliments, everyone who saw them knew them to be inseparable.

He was a shining example to all, the very image of a virtuous hero.

Yet the man had one great flaw: pride.

The man was granted immense knowledge by those who came before him, and with it, a great reputation. The man did not openly display his pride often, but it was there; and when one of his dearest friends was lost to him forever, that pride reared its ugly head.

In a faraway realm, the man received grim news: his death was coming soon.

This shocked the man. He had lived for a long time, you see, and he had not expected the reaper to claim him so soon. He had expected far more time before it was his turn to pass the torch.

The man ran.

He ran away from his own demise, desperately hoping to avoid it, to somehow cheat death itself, to ward off the inevitable fate that awaited him. The pride he held in his own legend compelled him to seek a way out.

Perhaps it was fear of his own demise. Perhaps it was the sheer disbelief in his own mortality. But nevertheless, the man made a catastrophic mistake.

He overreached his boundaries, meddling with forces well beyond his ability to handle. He nearly destroyed the universe as we know it. He would have succeeded too, if another man had not taken his own life to remind him of his duty.

The man was despondent for a while afterwards.

Then, the man’s former friends came. They wished to commit the same mistake that he had nearly committed, to sin as he had nearly done so. The man learned that some enemies were closer to allies than he thought, and narrowly averted the crisis.

But then, he heard the signal of his demise.

The man turned to see an older man, trapped and about to die. The older man was nothing special: the man had saved many like him throughout the man’s long, long life. He began to wonder: why?

Why do I continue to do this? Why do I continue to toil and toil, without hope? Why must I continue to agonize without witness? Why must I suffer through tragedy after tragedy without reward?

And yet, the man still did so.

He sacrificed himself in place of the older man, accepting the burden of his own death, finally embracing the fate he had ran from all this time.

And as the man lay dying, alone yet not alone—for his constant companion was with him—he could only utter five words. Five words that, while not every man would utter upon his death, all have thought as the last vestiges of life slipped from their bones:

“I don’t want to go.”

**Author's Note:**

> This little oneshot was kicking around my brain for a while. Hope you Whovians like it.


End file.
